


The Gift of the Magi

by applejackcat



Category: 'Screenplay' Safe (TV Episode 1993), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 21:40:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4453388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applejackcat/pseuds/applejackcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nosty gets a fourteen month stretch, serves every second of his sentence, and comes out the other end a weaker man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gift of the Magi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatRavenclawBitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatRavenclawBitch/gifts).



Nosty gets fourteen months in the nick and serves every fucking one of them.

 

The cunt of a prison psychiatrist gets it into his barmy brain that he can “stabilize” Nosty’s “problematic mood swings” with an ever changing cocktail of psychoactive drugs. The wanker seems most pleased when his patient muddles through his sentence in a tranquilized fugue. By the time the authorities release Nosty back into society at large, he knows he has lost his edge and might never regain it.

 

If he returns to his old haunts, his boys, his former brethren, will sense his weakness and tear him to shreds. He will be lower than the likes of Gypo and Kaz, those pathetic wasters, and Nosty decides he will die in a gutter before he debases himself by begging for scraps at the edges of another man’s fire.

 

He stopped haunting libraries ages ago, back in his teens, not long after he realized how poorly a book education would serve him on the streets.

 

Nosty knows how much smarter he is than the twallies who comprised his former crew. It used to rankle him that he could mention Shakespeare -- William fucking Shakespeare, for fuck’s sake, as if those twats didn’t pass by the Globe Theatre on a regular basis -- and get blank stares in return. Later, he wore his intelligence as a badge of pride, using it as a sort of magic trick to entrance his troops.

 

Any fucker could stab himself with a bottle. But call it hari kari? Well, you know that bloke is someone mental, not at all the kind of bastart with whom you should fuck.

 

Nosty leaves the nick in the middle of October, though, and needs somewhere quiet and warm where he can bide his time and formulate a new plan. (It worries him how accustomed he has become to warmth. Before his incarceration, he could never get warm, and he could never get dry. But he had the fortitude to soldier through his discomfort, a fortitude that his prescriptions stripped from him.) A library makes the most sense.

 

After his release, Nosty heads deep into Lambeth Council. He cannot afford to run into any of his former mates, and he knows the lot of them never venture far from the river. He chooses the library in Brixton because he knows he will not stand out by being the only homeless person there.

 

He meets Belle almost immediately.

 

She offers him the sort of smile that inspires timeless rock ballads and launches missions to the moon and introduces herself to him, as if they were taking in a fucking polo match at Guards.

 

“I work here,” Belle chirps after he mumbles his name to her, ashamed that he has become a Nosty and no longer has a claim to his Christian name. “If you need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

 

(It pleases no one save Nosty to realize that the cunt prison psychiatrist didn’t manage to fuck everything up, for his cock begins to swell at Belle’s unintended innuendo. He jerks off for the first time in months that night, and when he cums, he can think of nothing but the incredible blueness of her eyes.)

 

Shockingly, Belle seems to recognize his intelligence, too. She recommends a wealth of books to him, and when Nosty finally picks them up, he learns that she’s assigned him verbose, heady tomes. Their first argument comes when she catches him reading _Fifty Shades of Grey_ for the sex scenes.

 

“If you want pulpy fiction,” she opines, “for goodness sake, pick up The Shining.”

 

Nosty waves the offending novel in her face. “I’m not exactly looking for a complex plot, hen.”

 

Belle grins at him. “What if I told you there’s a very memorable scene of a naked woman in a bath?”

 

Their second argument erupts after Nosty devours _The Shining_ , eager to see what kind of kinkiness a twisted bastart like Stephen King can write, and discovers the aforementioned nude bather is a corpse.

 

“You tricked me!” Nosty accuses her. “And for fuck’s sake, a little boy finds her!”

 

Belle’s eyes twinkle merrily at him, and she gently swats his arm for cursing in her library. “You should see how Stanley Kubrick shot the scene in the film adaptation.”

 

Nosty, who experienced a momentary thrill at her casual touch, feels his mood darken. “Aye, well, it’s not as if I can pop home and watch it on my telly.”

 

Belle’s face flushes, and though he can tell she wants to look away, she holds his gaze. “That’s right. I’m sorry, Nosty. That was inconsiderate of me.”

 

Shame the likes of which he thought himself incapable overwhelms Nosty. A smart bird like Belle would immediately clock to the fact that his manky arse didn’t have a home, but it turns his stomach to imagine himself through her eyes: a runtish, smelly punter who probably sleeps in a cardboard box by the Brixton Market because he has become weak, all soft belly and trembling hands, and can no longer command his army of hooligans. Nosty the waster, Nosty the eejit, Nosty who barely sleeps at night because his bones ache and he fears another of London’s street people will steal what little he has left in the world.

 

When Belle presses her lips together sorrowfully and turns to leave, Nosty realizes it has been several moments since her apology. He allowed a gaping silence to spread between them, and now she believes he is cross with her. Pride locks Nosty’s lips together and keeps him from calling out to her, from beckoning her back to him.

 

Despite the dead-of-December chill that arrived in London several weeks ago and shows no sign of abating, Nosty makes a show of storming out of the library. The sharp wind kicks him in the teeth and the bollocks; his stomach clenches as he stamps his feet, drawing his threadbare jacket more tightly around him. He has no idea how he will keep warm through the rest of the day and into the night, but he has made his bed, so to speak, and now he would fucking lie in it.

 

To prove to him that pride is the least useful tool at his disposal, Nosty’s body betrays him and contracts the bubonic fucking plague.

 

He develops a cough so rattling that sometimes he boaks what little food he manages to scrounge. His energy ebbs from him so that he can barely manage to prop himself against a building, but no matter how exhausted he feels, sleep evades him. By the third day, when he flu shows no sign of abating, Nosty’s illness-fractured mind begins to ponder whether he will die.

 

Of course, Belle stumbles upon him when he is at his weakest. She discovers him as she walks down Coldharbour Lane, posh heels clicking daintily against the sidewalk, and the wee bird squawks so loudly when she sees him that she startles Nosty from his morbid musings.

 

“Nosty, I’ve been so worried!” Belle kneels down beside him, mucking the knees of her stockings in the process. Her small, slender hand presses tenderly against his cheek, and she makes a furious peep when she feels his fevered skin. “Why in god’s name did you not come to me when you took a turn for the worse?” she demands angrily. “I would have taken care of you! Well, better late than never.”

 

Nosty has always tended towards the scrawny, but his pride suffers another hit as Belle, a woman so wee and dainty that she could sleep in a teacup if she so chose, hefts him to his feet as though he weighs nothing more than a feather pillow. His legs wobble precariously, and he has no choice but to let all his weight sag against her.

 

“If you think you might collapse, let me know. I don’t live far, and I think I could carry you to my flat if I had to.” She notes his wounded look and tuts. “I grew up on a cattle ranch in the Outback. If it makes you feel better, I could probably carry men a lot bigger than you.”

 

Nosty’s fever robs him of his ability to guard his tongue, so he blurts, “Dinae want you carrying other men.”

 

Belle’s laughter washes over him, musical like a nightingale's song. “I promise to refrain from carrying other men until you’re back on your feet.”

 

They reach her flat. Nosty marvels that this sweet little bird will let him, a virtual stranger, some gingin Weegie bastart who'd stoop to reading _Fifty Shades of Grey_ to get his rocks off, into her undoubtedly cozy home. Would she be so eager to welcome him as a houseguest if she knew he imagines her mouth upon him when he makes himself cum?

 

Belle senses his hesitancy and turns him to face her, so he can see her effervescent smile and her startling blue eyes. “It’s not the Ritz, but it has its charm.”

 

“Fuck, Belle. Why? You can pour all your time and effort into me, and I’ll still be a fucking midgie raker.”

 

Once again, Belle refuses to look away from him for the sake of her own comfort. She’s hoora brave, this wee bird. “It’s high time somebody cared for you, Nosty,” she murmurs, “and I intend that someone to be me.”

  



End file.
